Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy

Phones have become a personal part of our lives today. They have a great deal of technology and connectivity that is not well understand by users. Things are fairly opaque and "secure". This makes the phones vulnerable to attacks. Software can theoretically use the microphone to listen, camera to see and scan any activity from the phone. Via the network, this can all be sent back to others to view. NSO group took advantage of this "theory" and implemented spyware that it sold to states. Once installed, a person could be tracked in detail.

This book has two parts. The title parts is a look at modern computer security, the NSO Group and the Pegasus Spyware. However, a big part of the book is spent on the second part: the process of journalism. There is discussion of how different journalists work together, and the concerns they have when breaking a story. They want to balance giving people a chance to defend themselves with the alerting bad players of the investigation. They also don't want to hurt people's feelings by breaking news.

The Pegasus spyware was supported by a large computer system. They focussed on selling it to state actors. It had been used to infiltrate Mexican Drug Lords and other criminal operations. However, it had also been illicitly used to spy on opposition parties and journalists. There are many people that could be viewed as "bad" by those with the power of spyware. With great power comes great responsibility. Openness and privacy each have benefits and drawbacks.